The Scientific process
Caligari
entry, "Because As We All Know, The Green Party Runs the World.",
http://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=886 :
"Science doesn’t work despite scientists being asses. Science works,
to at least some extent, because scientists are asses. Bickering and
backstabbing are essential elements of the process. Haven’t any of
these guys ever heard of “peer review”?
There’s this myth in wide circulation: rational, emotionless Vulcans
in white coats, plumbing the secrets of the universe, their Scientific
Methods unsullied by bias or emotionalism. Most people know it’s a
myth, of course; they subscribe to a more nuanced view in which
scientists are as petty and vain and human as anyone (and as
egotistical as any therapist or financier), people who use scientific
methodology to tamp down their human imperfections and manage some
approximation of objectivity.
But that’s a myth too. The fact is, we are all humans; and humans come
with dogma as standard equipment. We can no more shake off our biases
than Liz Cheney could pay a compliment to Barack Obama. The best we
can do— the best science can do— is make sure that at least, we get to
choose among competing biases.
That’s how science works. It’s not a hippie love-in; it’s rugby. Every
time you put out a paper, the guy you pissed off at last year’s
Houston conference is gonna be laying in wait. Every time you think
you’ve made a breakthrough, that asshole supervisor who told you you
needed more data will be standing ready to shoot it down. You want to
know how the Human Genome Project finished so far ahead of schedule?
Because it was the Human Genome projects, two competing teams locked
in bitter rivalry, one led by J. Craig Venter, one by Francis Collins
— and from what I hear, those guys did not like each other at all.
This is how it works: you put your model out there in the coliseum,
and a bunch of guys in white coats kick the shit out of it. If it’s
still alive when the dust clears, your brainchild receives conditional
acceptance. It does not get rejected. This time.
Yes, there are mafias. There are those spared the kicking because they
have connections. There are established cliques who decide what
appears in Science, who gets to give a spoken presentation and who
gets kicked down to the poster sessions with the kiddies. I know a
couple of people who will probably never get credit for the work
they’ve done, for the insights they’ve produced. But the insights
themselves prevail. Even if the establishment shoots the messenger, so
long as the message is valid it will work its way into the heart of
the enemy’s camp. First it will be ridiculed. Then it will be accepted
as true, but irrelevant. Finally, it will be embraced as canon, and
what’s more everyone will know that it was always so embraced, and it
was Our Glorious Leader who had the idea. The credit may not go to
those who deserve it; but the field will have moved forward.
Science is so powerful that it drags us kicking and screaming towards
the truth despite our best efforts to avoid it. And it does that at
least partly fueled by our pettiness and our rivalries. Science is
alchemy: it turns shit into gold. Keep that in mind the next time some
blogger decries the ill manners of a bunch of climate scientists under
continual siege by forces with vastly deeper pockets and much louder
megaphones."
P.S. It may not be apparent, but this is not OT.
-- Caligari